SORRY STATE OF THE UNION WON'T BE ADDRESSED IN BUSH'S STUPID SPEECH

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SORRY STATE OF THE UNION WON'T BE ADDRESSED IN BUSH'S STUPID SPEECH

By Bill Gallagher

DETROIT

The state of the union is sad and shattered. After six years, the man who peddled himself as a "uniter" has torn our nation apart and ripped us away from the international community.

President George W. Bush has systematically alienated most of the world and inflamed unprecedented hostility toward the United States, both from traditional friends and from an increasing number of angry people in the nations Bush has invaded, insulted, isolated and ignored.

The State of the Union address is always more political theater than substance, but we can usually extract a few telling nuggets from the speech and the interaction of the president, the members of Congress and the audience. Then, of course, we must endure the ridiculous spinning from the assembled politicos and pundits. Watching the first woman ever to preside at the event and the first Democrat in 12 years will be sweet. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have to endure an hour posed next to Vice President Dick Cheney. Here's an important measurement: How many times will big Dick, staid and somber in his Republican-blue power suit, give his puppet a dutiful standing ovation as the stylish Pelosi remains staunchly seated in her dynamically colored outfit?

The response of members of Congress to Bush's umpteenth promise to achieve "victory" in Iraq will be revealing. The disastrous war of choice remains the critical issue of our times, the most damaging foreign policy blunder in U.S. history and the emblem of Bush's failed presidency.

The body language of presidential hopefuls listening to Bush as he twangs his untruths will be entertaining. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will be jumping to his feet the most, clapping enthusiastically to impress Bush's base and showing his support for the most inept commander in chief ever to address the Congress.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., will get plenty of attention. Other than when welcoming Bush, the two would be wise to sit on their derrieres and hands throughout the entire speech. Head-shaking and looks of scorn and disbelief will help too.

The other would-be Democratic presidential nominees -- Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.; Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.; and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. -- will strive for but certainly not get the attention sure to be heaped on Clinton and Obama.

Sen. Joseph "Lapdog" Lieberman, I-Conn., will be stalking the president to give him a warm hug and hope for another peck on the cheek. Since Lieberman already spends most days publicly kissing Bush's ass, their Tuesday-night intimacy should be understated.

Lieberman had the nerve to accuse critics of Bush's Iraq war policies of engaging in "excessive partisanship and rancor." We are supposed to forget that in the last election Bush claimed people voting to elect Democrats to Congress "want the terrorists to win."

Lieberman, the sanctimonious hypocrite, never took issue with any of Bush's "excessive partisanship" then. Here's one for you, Joe, including rancor: The very sight of you and the sound of your whining voice make me physically ill.

White House spokesman Tony Snow says Bush will depart from the "typical State of the Union address" and avoid the usual recitation of "the traditional laundry list of administration proposals." Instead, Snow assures us, "Bubble Boy" Bush hopes to connect with the American people on the challenges ahead. In fact, our greatest challenge is enduring two more years of Bush.

It will be a relatively brief speech, Snow says, and Bush will focus on the major issues, "including the war on terror, energy, health care, immigration and education." Bush has failed miserably on every one of those issues. Just ask yourself the "are you better off" question Ronald Reagan famously posed.

Is the state of our union better today than it was six years ago when Bush, the man five partisans on the Supreme Court selected to be president, took the oath of office? The only people who will answer yes are the super-rich, the supremely partisan, the uninformed and those impervious to the truth.

The war in Iraq has fostered terrorism and spawned an entire new generation of young people growing up with the trauma of violence and war shaping their very existence. Bush will certainly not mention that the United Nations reported more than 34,000 Iraqis were killed in 2006. Such troubling statistics clutter a State of the Union address.

Bush's plan to send more troops into Baghdad will only result in more Iraqi and American deaths, and do nothing to pacify the nation thrust into civil war as a result of the invasion and incompetent occupation. The only hope is a political solution. Bush will never even consider that approach.

The Bush administration sees the "pursuit of force as a faith," writes Tom Engelhardt, who runs Tomdispatch.com, "a regular antidote to the mainstream media." In a recent article titled "The Look of a War against Islam: George Bush's Crusading Scorecard (2001-2007)," Engelhardt provides a scathing analysis of the administration's continuing miscalculations and its insensitivity toward the realities in Iraq and the religious tones in the conflict.

Engelhardt sees the "surge" bringing more death and destruction to Baghdad, home to nearly a quarter of Iraq's population. He predicts more suffering: "It's a formula for catastrophe and -- with the possible exception of the president, the vice president, and a dwindling number of hangers on (e.g., Joe Lieberman and the Fox News Channel, the folks Condi Rice "loves") -- the truth is that everyone in Washington, in the world, knows it."



While the Brazilians have shown how ethanol and agriculturally based fuels work, Bush will again plead for defiling the Arctic for a short-term boost of domestic oil production. He will say little, if anything, about energy and the environment.

Global warming is a liberal myth, something Al Gore invented, the Busheviks and their talk-radio cheerleaders claim. Bush severed the United States from any responsibility to reduce greenhouse gases when he gave the finger to the Kyoto Accords. He then mounted the greatest government assault on science since the Vatican tried to silence Copernicus for reporting the earth was not the center of the universe.

Health care will get another market-driven solution that will never work. Nearly 50 million Americans have no health insurance, and the number is growing. Our system is a failure -- a costly bill-shuffling game -- most benefiting the drug industry, insurance companies, for-profit hospitals and the Republican candidates they sponsor.

We remain the only industrialized nation without a single-payer system -- a severe competitive disadvantage for American manufacturers and businesses. The solution is simple. Bush could urge that every American receive the same health insurance he and members of Congress are entitled to. He never will.

Bush will give some lip service to immigration reform, but will use none of his greatly diminished political capital to do anything meaningful. He still supports building a stupid fence along the Mexican border to humor Republican lawmakers.

Bush's education policies are little more than a boom for private testing services and do nothing to address the needs of public education. Americans still lag behind other industrialized nations in the quality of primary and high school education.

Absent from Bush's list of "major issues" is fiscal responsibility, and for good reason. He has drained the U.S. Treasury, borrowing money to cover tax cuts that mainly benefit the richest 1 percent.

Bush has dramatically shifted the burden for the costs of government from the investor classes to the working classes, and created unconscionable debt in the process. He has put the nation on the track of a fiscal train wreck. Ben Bernanke, the chairman of he Federal Reserve Board, knows this gloomy reality Bush will never acknowledge. He warned last week, "If early and meaningful action is not taken, the U.S. economy could be seriously weakened."

The state of our union is in shambles. George W. Bush and the people who put him into office and continue to support him are responsible for this monumental mess.



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Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News. His e-mail address is [email protected].
Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com January 23 2007

Last Edited by Dr. Acula on 07/27/2013 10:01 PM